In All Sincerity, What Do Some WWE Fans Want From Becky Lynch?

Bryan Danielson once said it best: WWE fans — not all of them, but many — are fickle. Fickle with a major emphasis on the first letter of the word.

Becky Lynch, the greatest female superstar in the history of WWE, is no longer the Women's Intercontinental Champion. The Man lost her title to AJ Lee this past Saturday night at Elimination Chamber, marking her third consecutive submission loss to the previously retired former Divas Champion.

As she's been prone to do as of late, Lynch immediately took to social media after the show for a good crash-out session. She once again blamed referee Jessika Carr for her loss and called for her immediate suspension for her allegedly biased officiating. A request that was promptly denied by Raw General Manager Adam Pearce.

While Carr did stop Lynch from utilizing an exposed turnbuckle during the match, it was Becky who removed the padding in the first place. So when she went crashing face-first into the steel moments later, The Man really had no one to blame for the mishap other than herself.

The fact that Lynch felt the need to stoop to nefarious tactics in order to defeat a woman wrestling in her first singles match in over a decade, even someone as talented as AJ Lee, is just a microcosm of where her character is at mentally now that she's in the later stages of her career.

She can proudly boast about The Takedown on SI, Bleacher Report, and any other publication naming her the greatest of all-time as much as she wants, but as the losses pile up, her once impenetrable psyche is going to continue to erode from the crashing waves of self-doubt. Her mental breakdowns will become more erratic and extreme.

Behind the scenes, however, Rebecca Quin is in complete control. She knows exactly what she's doing and she's an invaluable asset to the WWE creative team.

Lynch returned to the company at WrestleMania 41 after taking a nearly year-long hiatus from professional wrestling. Severe burnout and a touch of mother's guilt were cited as the main reasons she decided to step away, but she also had a rocky relationship with the WWE Universe around the time that her contract expired.

Due to her constant presence in the main event scene, The Man was often compared to the late Hulk Hogan. Suggestions were made that she was using her star power and status within the company to win matches and championships, and to stunt the ascension of other women in the locker room. This despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

She put over Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania XL and Liv Morgan at King and Queen of the Ring before leaving for what she thought was going to be a summer-long break.

To be continued. pic.twitter.com/oILxlcwIyM
— Rebecca Quin (@BeckyLynchWWE) May 28, 2024

When Lynch finally did make her surprise return in Las Vegas this past April, she very easily could have been slotted right back in the main event scene like she was following the birth of her daughter in 2021.

People were furious when Becky squashed Bianca Belair at SummerSlam that year and walked away with the SmackDown Women's Championship. Backstage, as documented in her book and on WWE programming, Lynch pushed hard to pay back the E-S-T in a major way, and she followed through at WrestleMania 38 and the following SummerSlam.

She ran a very similar playbook with Lyra Valkyria and Maxxine Dupri over the past year, and while she left both those feuds with the Women's Intercontinental Championship around her waist, neither blowoff victory was clean. Those programs also resulted in two newly elevated superstars for the creative team to utilize. Whether they did so properly or not is a topic for another article.

In addition to molding the stars of tomorrow, The Man has also spent a great deal of her time this year helping Hall of Fame-caliber performers return to past form — much like she did with Lita and Trish Stratus years before.

First up was Nikki Bella at Clash in Paris, and then shortly afterward, AJ Lee laced up her Chuck Taylors for their series of matches.

I don't want to speak for her, but I feel confident in saying that working with new wrestlers, or ones that have been out of the game for a long time, are the exact types of challenges that keep Becky Lynch coming back to the ring.

We are talking about a first ballot Hall of Famer through and through. Lynch has shattered glass ceilings, climbed to heights never before reached by a woman in this industry, and save for winning Money in the Bank, has achieved every milestone there is for a performer in WWE.

Admittedly, this is a strange thing to say, but winning Royal Rumbles and World Titles is kind of old hat for The Man these days. She doesn't need to wrestle to pad her own personal resume, but it is clear that she wants to use her talents to help those who need assistance.

It's the perfect role for her at this point in her career, and yet many WWE fans are once again taking to social media to express frustration over the work she's been doing.

Isn't this the opposite of what some WWE fans were complaining about two years ago?

Ever since AJ Lee walked into her life, the character of Becky Lynch has been spiraling out of control. She lost at WrestlePalooza, she lost at Survivor Series: WarGames, she lost to Maxxine Dupri on multiple occasions, and now she has lost her Women's Intercontinental Championship for the second time, and I'm consistently reading online about how she's now lost her aura as a top superstar.

I don't have the time or energy to rifle through past social media commentary to prove these were the same people calling her Becky Hogan at the same point two years ago, but I'll guarantee there's a decent amount of crossover.

No one is saying that you have to like a particular booking decision; this is subjective entertainment after all. But I can't help but feel like Ryan Gosling standing in front of Rachel McAdams when I read comments like that. What do you want? What do these people want from Becky Lynch?

You're never going to please everyone, but it certainly seems like The Man can't win in the ring or with the fans these days, and it's a shame. At least her losses on television are by design. She's an incredible performer who is pouring everything she has into this mentally unstable character, all for the betterment of those around her.

Appreciate women like Becky Lynch and Bayley while they are still around. They are truly selfless and I fear won't be fully appreciated for the work that they've done until long after their days in WWE have come to an end.

The expectation is that Lynch and AJ Lee will battle each other once again at WrestleMania 42 this coming April, but don't anticipate that build starting on the March 2 edition of WWE Raw. The Man is promising to boycott the show following Adam Pearce's decision not to suspend referee Jessika Carr, even though she's being advertised locally. A decision I'm sure will draw the ire of some folks out there.